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By RYAN MAVITY
There is a certain class of music I like to call “sleep music.” In a nutshell, it’s music I can go to sleep to. It’s not necessarily bad; in fact it, may be quite good. But if you’re tired, or if it's rainy outside, which it is as I write this review, it will knock you out.
Add Liverpool band Anathema’s latest release Hindsight to that class. Ordinarily a rock/metal band, Anathema goes (mostly) acoustic on Hindsight. The album features new songs and reworked versions of older tracks in a mellow style. Many of these arrangements are atmospheric, with an emphasis on pretty melodies and acoustic guitars aided by the cello playing of Dave Wesling of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. To put a comparison out there, Hindsight has the feel of Coldplay’s Parachutes album or the slower parts of Radiohead’s The Bends but with a lower-pitched singer. The only exception is “A Natural Disaster,” one of the band’s older songs, which doubles as the best song on the album thanks to the lead vocals of Lee Douglas, whose voice has a Christina Scabbia-like tone. Douglas and singer Vincent Cavanaugh have a nice chemistry on that song and “Temporary Peace.”
But as many positive things as you can say about the record, the dreamy soundscapes can also be too much of a good thing. The album is so moody and atmospheric that you lose yourself a little too much. There’s an almost hypnotizing effect, but it’s hypnotizing in the way elevator music or watching a pocket watch going back and forth is hypnotizing. While that can be effective, there’s no release to snap you back out of it. Even when the band rocks out a bit, like on “Flying,” it keeps with the same hypnotizing rhythm.
Obviously, Anathema is experimenting, and the experiment largely works. But the album requires the listener to be in a certain mood. If you are in that mood, it’s very good work. If you’re feeling a little drowsy, you’re not going to make it long enough to enjoy it.
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